Sing of Joy in Deepest Sorrow
by Neon Daisies
Summary: What did it feel like to be a Siren?


**Author's Note: **No one has ever mentioned how it might feel to be one of the Sirens. Music is so beautiful, and the act of singing is all but magical. So how can such a good thing cause so much destruction? And how would it feel to be created to make beauty and harmony, just to see your efforts rewarded with death? Were the Sirens truly evil, eager to drown sailors who came to close, or were they a poorly thought out gift that could not break free of their nature?

And what in our world now could be compared to them in this story? What do we have that was created for good but that all too often causes the opposite to happen?

That's what inspired this re-telling.

* * *

_Sing of joy in deepest sorrow_

_Siren's songs_

_Joy of living, of creation_

_Hear the songs from far off_

_See the sailors coming_

_Can't stop singing_

_Sorrow – deep, intense, everlasting_

_It has happened and it happens_

– _They can't stop coming_

_Cautious in joy, reckless in sorrow_

_Dashed against the rocks_

_Can't stop singing_

_

* * *

_

Something went wrong in the moment of our creation. Too much effort was spent, or too many hopes went into us, too much beauty that should have been given to other creations. Or perhaps we were simply never meant to be and despite the best of intentions, we could never be anything but a disaster.

Created to entertain, to accompany, to delight, to soothe, we were revealed to a world that needed respite. To a people struggling to discover what they were. To a people who _needed_ to struggle to discover who they are. This was not Olympus where our voices were no more pleasing than the sound of running water. We had been made to well for our purpose.

Those mortals who first heard us needed what we had to offer, the promise of beauty and hope and assurance. We offered what we had – songs. But we had little experience with life outside of perfection, and our mortal companions did not thrive on the gift that had been set in their midst. They'd died of starvation in absolute rapture. And entire city wiped out because they could not tear themselves away from our songs long enough to even feed themselves. Though our songs of joy turned to harmonies of warning, of dismay, of tearful pleading for _someone_ to see what was happening and stop it because our music was meant to give pleasure to life not take away pleasure in life, my sisters and I could find no way to stopper our song. Our voices were a deadly lure, one we could not withdraw.

As the last of those we'd been placed amidst lay dying, our songs turned to curses. And where our pleas had gone unbidden by the gods who had created us, our recriminations did not. Devine anger knew no bounds, no satisfaction. Beg though we would to be taken away, reason though we would that we would be called monsters by those who had to live on earth for what we'd innocently set in motion and had been unable to stop, we were condemned to continue on as we'd been made. Our sentence for challenging the determination of Olympus was our dearest wish – to be placed where our voices would call no mortal ear. Our punishment was our greatest fear – to be placed where we'd never be certain whether our voices reached mortal ears until it was too late.

Placed on little more than a rock in the middle of the sea, we sang bitter songs until the sea and sky stormed and raged. None would dare the crashing waves to approach us. None would hear us over the restless drums of thunder.

But seasons passed, and living in the mortal world granted wisdom that those who lived isolated on the divine mount knew nothing of. Seeing change is not the same as living change, and out bitterness eased. The wind and the stars received our songs for they could not be harmed, and we learned of peace in spite of tragedy.

It seemed idyll, but such times are not allowed to linger long.

Too long had passed since those first deaths, and we had become monsters who lived only in story. The warnings that had begun our isolation and the memory of our grief-stricken storms that had enforced it were no longer enough to preserve it. They came too near – the adventurers, the broken hearted, the hopeless, the disillusioned – and our song wrapped their minds in silken but undeniable nets. The gods had chosen our prison too well; the cliffs and the rocks that locked us in became the doom of many. The cliffs were stained with blood that none but the tallest waves could reach and the sea claimed sailors made reckless by our fruitless warnings to not challenge the rocks hidden beneath the sea's white foam. The wind and the currents plucked their voices and their last breaths to add to ours, an unending chorus of regret that rang in our ears night and day.

Cursed to never forget the deaths we'd been unable to prevent and unable to inflict anything but death, our beauty has faded. Sun and salt have turned our skin to leather, the sea air has robbed our voices of their perfection. We resemble the rocks we live on, dull and crumbling with every century. But still our song echoes around us, a web of sound that we cannot deny any more than we can stop, still luring the curious to their deaths.


End file.
